Research

RQ: Does difficult access to water for domestic use lead to migration?

This article aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the causal relationship between climate and migration, which has remained inconclusive and often fails to consider alternative adaptive mechanisms. Specifically, we investigate the effect of drought on aspirations to migrate in and out of eleven Western African countries, controlling for irrigation. Our study utilizes cross-country comparable Gallup World Poll surveys combined with fine-grained geo-local information on irrigation coverage as well as drought occurrence and intensity. Our preliminary findings confirm the potential of irrigation to diminish the negative effect of drought on migration aspirations. However, further robustness checks and estimations on different samples will allow determining whether this correlation would encourage individuals to continue investing in their local communities or rather enable them to fulfill their migration aspirations. Overall, our study highlights the potential of alternative adaptation mechanisms in shaping migration patterns and emphasizes the need for a more nuanced understanding of the climate-migration nexus.